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Posted by
sparrow
on 2008-11-20

It's an easy trap to fall into. You've labored on your powerpoint presentation, you got nice graphics into it, you followed Guy's advice http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/t..., you practiced your pitch, and now you're ready to rock and roll.

You're a little nervous but feeling good. You go in and start your presentation, and you're on slide two, and the VC asks "What's the business model here""
No problem, you're ready for him. "I'll get to it on slide 7, let's go through the product first."

Stop! I know it' s hard to change the flow, but expect to do it. Go ahead and jump to slide 7 and give him 10 seconds to read the slide and then explain the model. 10 seconds should be enough since you don't have that much text on a slide, or you shouldn't and even if you did, it wouldn't matter since most VCs have ADD and won't take more than 10 seconds to read anything. The one exception is anything related to finance. But to get back to my main point (VCs are not the only ones with ADD), focus on what the other side is interested in and answer the questions in the order that they are presented.
Usually, one question will lead to the next and you'll find that you're referring to the presentation as support material rather than guiding the discussion.
So why do you need the powerpoint deck" As I just mentioned, it's support material, but it also helps you make sure you've covered everything. When things slow down in the conversation or when your time is almost up, go back through the presentation, and double check that you haven't missed any critical information.
As part of the conversation you'll hear some criticism or doubt about your product, your direction or something else in the presentation. Your gut reaction is to argue, mine is. They're not getting it. Stop yourself. Instead ask question to help you clarify why their thinking is different than yours. There are several reasons to do this.
1. They don't know your company and probably the space it's in nearly as well as you do. On the other hand, they've been exposed to a lot more companies than you have. You're getting free advice. Listen to it and try to absorb. I've talked to three VCs in the last 4 weeks, and two of them gave me good insight which helps me fine tune my model.
2. If they have this objection other VCs might have it too. Listen, learnd and maybe next time you do a pitch you'll be better prepared to answer this issue, or tackle it in your presentation.
3. Arguing has the potential of making you look defensive and uncooperative. Will they really want to invest in someone with these traits.

Having said that, if they challenge one of the basic assumptions of your plan and you've considered and rejected their arguments, it's perfectly OK to present this. "Yes, we've heard from other people that they thought that the markets can't be any bigger than 250,00 users, but actually a Gartner report in Feb of 2008 shows that there are at least 5,000,000. The reason the market is understimated is that most of these people are in Asia and the web analytics don't count them."
Here you scored a point. You thought of the problem researched it, and can provide supporting data.

In summary, try to reach a good balance of give and take. Talk about your product, show that you're excited about it, but listen. I certainly try to.